| Abstract: | Demand for urban and regional infrastructure at particular locations is the product of market economic forces acting in concert with the inertia of established demographic and economic patterns. Forecasts of how such patterns may evolve are the starting point for infrastructure planning. Factors affecting demand for infrastructure in the Sydney region, and for New South Wales as a whole, are outlined in the first part of this paper. To some extent, especially in large urbanised regions, the location of demand for infrastructure can be steered by public policy. Careful attention to the resource cost implications of different possible patterns of regional development can result in major savings. The second part of the paper reviews ways in which regional planning can complement more direct and faster-acting means of minimising private and public costs of financing infrastructure. |
